narrative reads made up.
Aaaah, so bloody what? All societies involved horrors. Don’t you know that all enslaved and were slaves?
The narrative is from a novel. But the scene is based on an account in Procopius. If you think that’s made up, that’s your prerogative, but the public Histories of Procopius are the gold standard for the 6th century. If we dispute the accuracy of those, then we know nothing about the 6th century.